


Hearing the News

by completelyhopeless



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Community: comment_fic, F/M, Gen, could be friendship could be more, they think phil is dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-02
Updated: 2014-12-02
Packaged: 2018-02-27 20:31:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2705786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/completelyhopeless/pseuds/completelyhopeless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>May gets the call from Hill about Coulson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hearing the News

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Evil_Little_Dog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evil_Little_Dog/gifts).



> For the prompt: _[Any, Any, "Don't they know it's the end of the world/It ended when you said goodbye."](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/512268.html?thread=74824716#t74824716)_
> 
> I don't do deathfics. I really don't like them. This fandom breaks me on that because Coulson survives (well, it's Marvel, people seem unable to stay dead.) Still, I wasn't going to go anywhere near this point in time because others would do it better and all but... damn it, I love the Nina Gordon version of that song and I couldn't stop this.
> 
> I happen to think, even if Coulson and May were never in love, their friendship mattered enough to her to where this could still have happened.

* * *

May got the news from Maria Hill. Maria was enough of a friend to make sure that May didn't hear it from someone else first, but Maria wasn't someone who held hands or sugarcoated anything. She never pulled punches and she called it like it was. That was why May respected her.

That didn't mean May didn't hate her for it right now.

_“May, it's Hill.” A brief pause, not even enough time to acknowledge what the other woman had said. “I don't have time to talk, but I thought you should hear it from me. Phil Coulson is dead.”_

May didn't remember what she said then. She didn't remember most of the rest of the day. There was a woman in Portland Phil told her about, and May knows that she will get all the sympathy, that everyone will think of her and want to comfort her because she lost him, and May didn't envy her that because she knew how hollow words of comfort were. She knew how little good they did.

She went home, walked almost straight into the shower as she had for days and days after Bahrain, always trying to wash away what could never be cleansed, and when she was under the stream, she couldn't tell the water from tears if she had any left.

Other people said the world ended when aliens invaded New York.

May's world, carefully pieced back together after the wreckage of Bahrain, ended when Phil Coulson died.


End file.
